Hi all,
I guess you could say I'm a 10 year veteran of the games industry. It's hard for me to believe it's been that long, and through exhaustive failure after failure (primarily as a result of terrible management decisions and guidance), it's destroyed any iota of interest I had working in this space.
I've been actively looking outside the space, taking advantage of the experiences I had, most of which have been pretty traumatizing. A few examples:
1) I worked a 52 hour DAY. I had about 2 hours sleep in between this crunch but stayed in the office for that entire time to get a project going. Because I have an anxiety disorder, I didn't take my meds that entire time and had a complete mental breakdown at the end of it.
2) I was relocated by one of the big names in the industry twice, and laid off three times by this same company, each less than a year after I started (one of which was TWO WEEKS after I started).
3) I lost my home, had to file bankruptcy and limp my way along after the first relocation. I lost many friends and family along the way due to the stress.
4) Most recently, I was working for a small studio and had to go in to surgery to take care of something that would leave me out of commission for two weeks. They laid me off the day of my surgery after they told me they were would be no problem if I went in for it (I never would have gone in had I known my job was at risk..oh wait, this is the games industry, every job that is not a coder is at risk).
5) I have probably bounced around from one company to another at LEAST once a year for the past 5 years. I've not been able to actual launch a title in quite a while because of how many bad decisions senior managers make. Ultimately, many of those titles are cancelled regardless of the quality because someone at the top can't stand by any decision.
The sacrifices I've made for this industry are enormous. I'm almost 40, I have no relationship to speak of. I'm living in another expensive city where I find myself, yet again, unemployed, and my resume looks like hell. I went to a pretty well-known engineering university and obtained a pretty coveted degree (not in programming), and gave it all up to follow a dream.
That dream was totally and utterly crushed by many of the senior managers you see smiling, waving, and some even posting here on reddit about how great it is to be in this industry. Let me be clear. They are where they are because they were the most ruthless people in the business, destroying careers, families, livelihoods, so that they could be a star in a business where, outside of the industry, nobody even knows who the hell they are. I have friends and colleagues that have been in this space who've suffered physical health issues, emotional issues, and absolutely no one seems to know or care about the way in which games industry people are treated because, hey, there are always 5 more chumps behind you more than willing to sacrifice everything for the financial success of a few at the top.
I've been thinking about writing this for a long while. I know a lot of you want to get into the industry. But I'm telling you there's a reason why it's a hits-driven business, and the good-old-boy club is well-entrenched in this space. I've learned that working hard and producing quality results means absolutely nothing to these people at the top. They WANT you to do this. It's expected, and when you're done producing, they show you the door.
This business is cutthroat, ruthless, and there are far too many copycat companies attempting to steal audiences from other successful titles with their own crap, unoriginal ideas. And hey, if they have the marketing power, they'll succeed.
This business has almost nothing to do with the quality of the game. Yes, there are some terrific titles out there and those studios succeed through a lot of this shit. But even the ones that do (I'm looking at you LA Noire team) suffer.
Games industry people continue to leave this business in droves...nobody tells you that anymore. After EASpouse blew up, EA's response was to put everyone below manager level on an hourly rate, but fulltime employment required 45 hours minimum a week. If you didn't make that time, you got no benefits. Nobody ever mentioned that. Fortunately, almost nobody ever just works 45 hours a week in this business. Well, maybe those executives you never see but have their slash and burn mentality towards creating "hits."
Most people don't last more than 5 years. You're either working on a title you don't like, or you're being laid off after you busted your balls producing a title so that the publishing machine can go to work profiting off all the hard work of the little people.
This may seem like a bitter post, and it is. My career is completely destroyed, and as a result, as I mentioned above, my #1 goal is to get out of this space. I'm only warning those of you out there of the risks involved working in it. Yes, there are (VERY FEW) studios out there that care about their employees to some extent, but even the biggest names in the business run their people into the ground. And when those people are beaten down, they spit them out for new fools to enter the channels.
Your best bet, if you really want to work in games, is to create your own product. Mind you, if it's a success be aware that those game companies will do what they can to rip off your idea, so you're kinda screwed there too. But really, if this is something you want to do, do it on the side, on your terms. Now it's better than ever to self-publish your own game. You may not make big money, you may not work for a big studio or publisher (believe me, that sounds better than it really is), but at least you have a professional career where you're treated with respect (hopefully) and not like ants in under a magnifying glass.
EDIT
I'm not going to reply to each post individually but will make an effort to respond to some of the questions. I notice some people can be particularly callous, and seem to be the ones just entering the market with hopes and dreams not unlike those I had. I believe I'd have responded the same way earlier on. I didn't enter this space to be mediocre or coast. I entered games because I had a passion, and if you assume otherwise, you're an idiot.
I apologize for being intentionally vague, but I do have to make a paycheck somehow.
1) My engineering degree was not a "DeVry" one...it's actually from a very competitive, accredited university. I went to school on an academic scholarship, with a disability, and worked part time to finish. I did this all on my own with no help from anyone. I grew up very poor and that, I thought, was the only way I would get out of that pit.
2) Although my case may be unique to me, there are many others I know who's experiences were unique to them, yet they've ended up in burnout land, working so hard to achieve a dream with so many people at high levels pulling the strings and making it impossible to achieve that dream. 3) The reason I didn't take my meds for the 52 hour run was because I had NO idea I was going to be stuck at work that day for that long (the result of my manager picking an outsource developer who completely screwed us). I had no access to medication. And let me get one thing straight, I have an anxiety disorder...this does NOT make me weak or less capable than anyone else. I'm pretty sure I've worked harder than most people I know despite my (separate) disability and the disorder (which, over years, has been made worse due to the volatlity of this market). 4) For about 5 years up until the great recession, I actually did achieve a mild level of success and had consistent employment for a decent company. But that ended and I've been unable to maintain consistent employment for very long anywhere after that...which makes it impossible because in this industry unless you have products out there, you're a failure.
5) I haven't listed some of the other things I've experienced mainly because they've been very painful to me. But I did make quite a number of friends in this space and the worst thing is the terminal layoffs tossing those friends all over the globe. This makes for an okay virtual network...it doesn't really help with a real, working network of support. IF you can find something like this, despite any layoffs, then I do strongly recommend you develop and maintain those relationships. 6) I didn't come in here to be some "grizzled vet" or anything. I honestly came in to speak my story, tell you that I've heard many other nightmare stories, and the ones who succeed in this business are absolutely the engineers and the most ruthless sharks in business. EVERY industry requires more than just programmers and senior managers. There are designers, management, administration, etc...etc..., just because not everyone is a programmer doesn't make them without value in this one.
7) RE: the 45 hour work week. This happened shortly after I went to EA. I didn't experience this personally, but my subordinates did. I think it ended rather quickly when people realized how illegal it was. I think it lasted maybe a couple months, but the point is that none of these companies bother to follow. I myself have never put in anything less than a 45 hour work week, and I work very, very hard.
Anyway, take all this the way you want. Some people get lucky, this being a hits-driven business, many, many do not. I honest to god wish I had some of the great experiences listed in the thread, but it didn't happen.
Originariamente Scritto da Glorfindel75
Re: [CIRCOLINO] Frequentatori del fu "Gioco Allegato" e "Sala Giochi"
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